


Second in Command

by Lizzyorbit



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amren is a badass, Gen, I am having writers block on my main fic so I wrote this, Partially during ACoMaF, Partially pre-ACoTaR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25664719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizzyorbit/pseuds/Lizzyorbit
Summary: The King of Hybern didn't have the cauldron during the first war so how was he so powerful? Oddly enough, Amren. Broken out of her prison to aid in the war Amren works as the King of Hybern's second in command for a time before deserting to meet Rhysand and turn the tides. But centuries later when Amren joins Rhys as his second on the trip to Hybern to take the cauldron out of play during the new war, the King meets his second once again, and maybe Amren should've told her friends a little more about her life before she met them.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to write this little short fic in one night while having writers block on my main fic, so here is chapter one. The other two chapters are written and just going through some editing but total I think this will be 5-6K words. I hope you all like it!

Amren knelt on the stone floor flipping through pages of her spellbook as the castle shook around her. Guards ran frantically up and down the hallway, though still managing to give her a wide berth through their panic. Useless, the lot of them. They were nothing more than cannon fodder in this war. The true power players cared nothing for their lives. 

Amren flipped another page, finally finding what she was searching for. Both her hands pressed into the stone floor beneath her and she began reciting the old spell. Her magic wrapped new protective wards around the entire castle, and with her hands on the floor she could feel the shaking slow and then stop altogether as the spell took effect. 

She stood, tucking her spell book under her arm, and looked out the nearest window. Winged soldiers surrounded the castle, their red, blue, and green bolts of magic now absorbed harmlessly into the wards she had constructed. It made them easy targets for the now shielded archers peeking out of windows and over walls. If their enemies whipped out blades or arrows of their own it would be another story, but she couldn’t make it a flat out slaughter. Well, couldn’t was an overstatement. More like she was disinclined to. She protected the castle out of necessity for her own safety but she cared little for the outcome of the war these soldiers fought. Most of the time, anyway. 

She pushed away from the window and made her way through the winding castle toward the man she knew would be waiting for her. With every window she passed she saw fewer of the bat winged warriors in the sky, and by the time she reached the large oaken doors the battle was over.

As Amren entered the throne room the other members of the King’s trusted inner circle turned and fell back into a line against the wall furthest from her. Good, she had no patience for them on the best of occasions.

“Second,” he greeted her, tersely.

“King,” she replied coldly. It was their usual call and response. 

“I just lost an awful lot of useful assets because your wards fell at the first true test of them,” the King snapped. As if he cared. 

“That is because they were intended to prevent spies from entering the castle, through magical or physical means. As you instructed. Perhaps, if you had decent spies yourself you would have known that the Night Court was planning on launching a full scale attack against us and I would have updated the wards accordingly. As I did mid-attack if you hadn’t noticed,” Amren retorted.

“What use was it for me to have pulled you out of that prison if you are not going to be useful?” he said, ignoring her statement. Amren’s back straightened, muscles tensing. “Perhaps I should put you back, if you plan on continuing to be useless.”

This war had been raging for five years and the King had been using that threat throughout. Amren had continued to regain her power bit by bit since her prison break at this point she doubted he could actually make good on it, but it never failed to send a shiver down her spine. 

“Or perhaps I’ll just cut off your food supply until you prove yourself useful,” the King continued thoughtfully.

“And if you try that I might take up a taste for Hybern castle guards,” Amren countered, a hard edge in her voice. She was tired of these games. They kept a delicate balance of control, perched on the edge of a knife. He had been more powerful than she, at first. These days she questioned that. But it was easier to stay and fight his battle for him than to run and live with an army hunting her down. 

“When I’ve won this war and you’ve earned some trust and freedom, I think you’d be very fun to set loose upon my enemies,” the King mused casually. 

The rage boiled up inside Amren and she hit some threshold she had not known existed within herself. Earned some freedom? Set upon his enemies? Like some glorified pet? This was a new low. Maybe it was worth running. 

With that simple sentence the plan that had lived in the back of her mind for a few months now became her new chosen course. Her expression fell into its usual cold neutrality.

“I will be going into battle,” she said, tone final.

“What?” the King replied, caught off guard by her sudden shift in tone and topic.

“The High Lord of Night’s son, you want him dead. You know where the garrison he is leading will be. You want to make a statement, especially now, after this attack on your castle. I want to kill the High Lord’s son myself,” Amren stated, each sentence spoken as emotionless fact. 

The King glared daggers at one of the men who lined the wall on the throne room, one of the higher ranked spies. The man cringed under the King’s gaze. 

“You can’t really blame them for telling me, when they know I will simply kill them if they don’t give me the information I want,” Amren spoke again, this time with a feral smile at the spy, who had in fact told her the King was having him track the movements of the High Lord’s heir earlier that day. 

“You’ve kept yourself out of sight this long. You haven’t even spoken your name to anyone. Let no one outside this castle see you. Why do you want to expose yourself now?” the King questioned, more confused than suspicious.

“As you said: you pulled me out of that prison. The Night Court are the ones who monitor it. It was one of this High Lord’s ancestors who dropped me there. I would like to take the debt owed to me by his bloodline. You want him dead anyway. I am the only person here who could kill him, who rivals him in power,” Amren said. “Besides yourself, of course.” The King smiled, pleased at this, missing the sarcasm and condescension that flowed just under the cold surface of the words. 

“We could go into battle, both of us, against the boy and his garrison. Between us we would demolish them so thoroughly there won’t even be a man left to take prisoner. That would certainly send a message. There are not many armies near where they’re positioned,” the King thought aloud, motioning for one of the soldiers against the wall to bring forward a newly updated war map he had been holding. 

Amren had to hold back a sneer. The man was self obsessed to the extreme. Sometimes she wondered if this war was truly about human slavery, or if it just an excuse to make sure everyone on that island of Prythian knew how powerful he was. 

“We would have to bring a large legion, give the boy something to focus on, and then he won’t see you coming. You think you could take him in open combat?” the King questioned, his eyes snapping back to her. Amren smiled widely and every person in the room flinched. 

“Certainly,” Amren replied simply, slightly loosening the grip she kept on her raw power and letting it fill the room.


	2. Chapter 2

Amren skirted the edges of the battlefield, killing only those who spotted her. She was doing her best not to draw attention to herself. It would be incredibly inconvenient for the King to find his most favorite little weapon had abandoned him. When she was nearly to the opposite side of the field from her origin, she spotted what she was looking for: a small woman, approximately her size. The woman was clearly human and seemed to be wearing whatever the human army believed passed for armor. It was pathetic. No wonder they were losing so badly. One look from Amren had the woman collapsing to the ground, her heart giving out from the fear Amren had thrown her mind into. In the chaos of battle no one noticed her bloodless death. Amren waited in the trees that had shielded her thus far until the combined force of the Night Court and human armies pushed forward a little further and the woman’s body was accessible. She darted out of the trees and grabbed the woman’s body, dragging her into the light shelter of the trees. Amren quickly stripped the woman and then herself and switched their clothing. Her former clothes didn’t fit into her current plan, their style and color clearly marked her as of the Hybern’s army. 

When Amren re-emerged from the trees onto the killing field the Hybern armies had started to fall back. Clearly the King had realized something was wrong. If all worked as she had planned the King would believe her dead. Lost in the endless piles of bloodied bodies on the battlefield. Never to be seen again. The only tragedy of her plan was that it had required her to leave her spell book behind, with the King. He had said she wouldn’t need it for her assassination attempt, and it would be safer would of the battle, which was true. Additionally, with how closely she guarded that book if she disappeared without it, as long as she never tried to go back for it, no one would question that she was well and truly dead. One the positive side, she was fairly certain the King wasn’t powerful enough to do anything so damaging she could not undo it. Either way, the book in his hands was infinity less powerful than her with the book under his control. 

Amren turned, ignoring both armies, and started off toward the encampment the Night Court soldiers had inhabited before Hybern had advanced upon them. Once the battle was over they would surely return to them and she would be able to talk to the man who she had arranged this whole battle to speak to.

Eventually, the men returned, a mass of leather clad bodies and raucous cheers. Humans, fae, and winged soldiers she recognized from the recent attack on Hybern were all interspersed throughout the crowd, talking and holding up one another like close friends. One tall fae male stood out near the front of the crowd and she guessed this to be who she was looking for. 

“Rhysand,” she called, her voice commanding. She had been right, the man she’d picked out turned at the call, looking tired and bloodied. The camp had become crowded and he began scanning the people around her, a crease forming between his brows as he hunted for the source of the call. Amren began walking toward him, letting her power flow around her, creating a bubble of space as people stepped back, confused and scared by this unknown woman. She met the violet eyes of the heir to the Night Court and watched his expression as he took her in. Short in stature, features not indicative of any particular court, human armor, startling, unnatural gray eyes, and the pure power that radiated from her. The crease between his brows deepened and he took a measured step forward, sliding casually into a fighting stance.

“I mean you no harm. I wish to talk,” she said cooly, still walking toward him, chin tilted up haughtily. The men that stepped back from her began to reach for their weapons, hands resting on the hilt of already bloodied swords as they looked to their commander for the order to kill. 

Rhysand cocked his head to one side. “Who are you?” 

That was a question Amren had not answered truthfully in a long time. She’d refused to tell anyone in Hybern anything about herself from her name to what she was or where she came from. It wasn’t something she’d intended to reveal to anyone here either, but as she finally came to a stop a few feet from Rhysand and held her hand up in the empty space between them, something inside her told her this was important.

“Amren,” she replied, testing the feeling of saying her name aloud again. “I’m a concerned observer. This war has gotten out of hand and I can win it for you.” She sounded so self assured and confident she almost believed it was the whole truth.

Rhysand raised his eyebrows at her, his expression disbelieving, but he didn't seem inclined to contradict her and start a fight. He reached out his hand and took hers, shaking it briefly. 

“That’s quite the promise.” Rhysand was clearly skeptical. “Let’s talk.” He motioned for his men to relax and hands lifted from sword hilts. The crowd began to disperse, soldiers still eyeing her warily as they moved toward tents, unstrapping armor as they went. Rhysand was still staring at her, seeming unwilling to turn his back. Amren’s gaze turned questioning and she looked around meaningfully. Rhysand sighed and waved her ahead of him. 

When they entered the largest of the tents in the encampment, one of the winged men stood waiting for them, eyeing Amren with distrust. He kept his armor on and weapons close at hand. 

“This is one of my lieutenants, Brawen,” Rhysand introduced. Amren ignored the man entirely, having deemed him unworthy of her attention at first sight. “So, you think you can win this war?” 

“To be more precise, I think I can help you win this war. Or your side at least.” 

Amren spun her carefully crafted tale, that she had been watching the war from afar and had decided that Hybern needed to lose, which was kind of true. She told them she had taken out an undisclosed but major asset of the King’s and that was why the battle today had gone in their favor. 

“But how? And who?” Rhysand questioned her. “You can’t just expect us to take you at your word on something like that.” Amren supposed it had been too much to hope that he would be as dumb as he was pretty.

“A spell crafter, high in his ranks,” she replied. “She was the source of his strategic planning and a large amount of his skilled magic. Wards, large scale offensive magic, some nastier curses. Her abilities were similar to mine, though they worked in different ways.” She wondered if it seemed as painfully obvious that she was pretending to have killed herself to them as it did to her. 

“It sounds like she was someone you knew,” Rhysand observed. “You killed her?” Amren nodded. With how this war had been going Rhysand wasn’t going to turn down help, even if it was in the form of this strange and intimidating woman, whose motives he could only guess at.

“Fine then, do you know anything about what Hybern’s next move might be?” he asked her, sitting down in front of a map.

She stayed with Rhysand for the next year and a half, exacting revenge on the King of Hybern for every moment of the five years she had spent in his company. It only took one battle for Rhysand to realize the absolutely lethal weapon he had stumbled upon. The High Lord took notice too, when his son’s legion suddenly became the most deadly force on the playing field. Upon investigation and discovering Amren, he attempted to convince her to work with him instead. He only succeeded when the war looked to be coming to an end and he asked her to attend treaty negotiations, to intimidate the other side. She left only days before Amarantha, who she had always despised, captured Rhysand, and killed all his men, though she didn’t find out until years later.

After the war was finally over, she was finally free to roam as she wished. No one but Hybern knew she belonged in the prison, and he believed her to be dead. She spent years wandering Prythian, until Rhysand found her again and offered her a position in his new court, as his second. 

“I suppose no one has ever offered me that before,” she responded, the irony in her tone nearly imperceptible. “I’ll do it.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was the first thing I wrote and really the reason I wrote the other two previous chapters. I'm super into it. There's a little bit of dialogue pulled directly from ACoMaF so if you recognize it I do not claim to own it.

“Amren,” Rhysand called to her as she turned to leave the main meeting room of the House of Wind. The plan for Hybern was set and seemed sound. She paused and turned, one eyebrow raised. “I want you to come with us, when we go to deactivate the cauldron. If something goes wrong with Feyre and the Book of Breathings, it might be smart to have the only person who can translate the book there with us.”

“Someone has to stay here and protect Velaris,” Amren argued. She had never admitted to Rhys that she had worked with Hybern in the first war. Going back into that castle not only seemed like a recipe for disaster, but just the idea set her on edge.

“We’ve reinforced the wards surrounding the city and we’re taking out the cauldron, if all goes according to plan there should be no way for Hybern to get through, even with none of us here,” Rhys countered.

“And if anything goes awry then all of us are trapped and the cauldron will crack through the wards in a matter of minutes and the city will fall.” 

“You yourself said this plan is solid. If it goes poorly we have ways out, multiple actually. We can all get back to the city if they decide to launch an attack.”

He was right. She believed in the plan and if it went well the King would never see them. She could handle being in the castle for a few minutes, if it kept the King from having the cauldron. Amren slowly nodded, but the sense of foreboding stuck in her mind. She thought it was just her own fear of seeing the King and having her friends know the truth until it was too late.

Amren felt the wards snap up around them a moment before they all heard the steps from above. Magic suddenly formed a cage around them, preventing any means of escape. Then, a moment after, the same magic formed a cage around her own body, suppressing her own magic. The wards felt odd, familiar in a way she couldn’t place, and it distracted her for a moment long enough for everyone else to draw their blades and position themselves in front of Feyre. And then Jurian was there and Amren realized this was all so clearly a trap. The cunning, analytical part of her brain must have melted away after all the years of contentment in Velaris. In finding a family and a place she might call home, she had lost her edge. The Amren who had stepped into Rhys’s war camp and told him she could win the war for him was not the same person who had heard this plan and thought it was a good idea. Jurian was harassing Cassian first, as Rhysand subtly stole the Book of Breathings back from Feyre’s hands. Then he moved on to Mor.

“Liar,” Jurian crooned to her. He was attempting to - her into giving him information on Myriam. Predictable. But if Jurian was here working with the King, Amren had bigger issues. He had not spotten her yet, her small form hidden behind three hulking Illyrian males, but she had met him during the war and if he had told the King about her. Then the King knew she was not dead. And that she was likely with the Night Court. And that some part of this plan had been to trap her. 

She was running through various ways out of this when the rest of her family realized they could not winnow out. And then that their powers were bound. 

“Then, there’s that. Didn’t you remember? Perhaps you forgot, it’s a good thing I was there, awake for every moment Rhysand. She stole his book of spells to take your powers,” Jurian said. 

Shock rolled through Amren and the words fell from her mouth before she thought through the consequences. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt your little speech, but did you say his book of spells?” she asked, the words dripping in disdain to hide the true surprise and horror she felt.

That must be why the wards holding them felt so familiar. They had come from her spellbook, the one she had forgotten about over the last five hundred years. The one she had thought almost harmless to leave with the King. Well, that had clearly been a mistake.

Her words drew Jurian’s attention toward her and Cassain twisted slightly, looking at her with a bewildered expression. He was confused by her question, and she was sure the rest of them were as well, but she could not focus on that now. With Cassian positioned like that she was visible to Juiran and she met his brown eyes with her steely gray ones. 

“And little Amren, I see you’re still with Rhysand. I would have thought you had moved on to bigger and better things by now,” Jurian smiled sweetly. “And yes, the King’s spell book was the one Amarantha used, but he made sure it was returned to him. She didn’t know how to use half the nastier spells in that book. If you have any other clarifying questions now would be the time to ask. I know it must be hard to hear from down there.” Jurian finished. Cassian loosed a growl and twisted back so she was once again behind him. 

No taunt about -. Well then, perhaps the King hadn’t told Jurian she had been on his side. Or perhaps Jurian hadn’t told the King about Rhysand’s second in command. Maybe he had and the King hadn’t put it together. And if that was true then they might not all die here. Amren closed her eyes, blocking out the conversation, if you could call it that. She felt for the magic that caged her own power. Familiar, that was the first thought yet again. Familiar because she had created this spell many many years ago. The magic twisted and crossed in patterns she knew. It concentrated in specific areas just as she had designed. The more power the person put up against it, the stronger the spell would hold them.

Footsteps sounded again on the stairs and Amren knew who it would be without opening her eyes. This was going to go very poorly.

“The trap was so easy I’m honestly a bit disappointed you didn’t see it coming,” the King said. His voice was the same. The same one she heard in her head when she thought of her darkest years. When she’d known no morality, no peace, no family. Just blood and hate and power and control. The prison had been a more pleasant experience.

Amren opened her eyes. She had to know if he was speaking to Rhysand or herself. Either way he was right, both of them should have seen this coming miles away, but she needed to assess whether the King knew of her presence. He could only see the top of his head over Cassian’s shoulder but it was turned toward Rhysand. He likely didn’t know she was here then. She would be his first priority if he did. She was sure of that. But before she could rejoice in this small victory Jurian fired a hidden ashbolt through Azriel’s chest. 

Amren missed the shot, hidden behind them as she was, and she only realized what was happening as Mor screamed and Azriel fell, only barely caught by Cassian. SHe had to step quickly to the side to remain hidden and with her altered angle she could see the sharpened end of the wood protruding from Azriel’s back, directly between his wings. 

“It’s dipped in bloodbane,” the King commented casually, as if he spoke about the weather. “It will flow where I will it, so if you would like your friend to survive longer than the next two minutes, you will all follow me up the stairs.” 

If Amren was going to do something it would have to be now. The moment they started moving the King would notice her and any control she had over this situation would dissolve. She closed her eyes again for a moment and focused again on the cage of power around her. There was a weak point in the spellwork. One she had built into it, specifically so that it could never be used against her. To try and break the spell was a risk. If the King knew she was alive or even guessed at it he could have altered the spell, found this weak point and made it a trap specifically built for her. He could have built just about anything into it. For all she knew attempting to break out could make the spell permanent. Of course, that would require the King to be both intelligent and good at spell crafting, to have identified the weakness that no one else had and exploited it. And she didn’t believe he was either. So, fuck it. It was a risk she would take for her family. 

As she sensed Rhys take a step forward, apparently having decided they all had no choice but compliance, Amren suppressed every ounce of power within herself. Pushed the magic that poured through every fiber of the immortal prison of a body she inhabited into one tiny spark in the center of her chest. Push and pressed and suppressed in a way she did not think any normal High Fae would be capable of until the warding magic around her stopped registering her magic altogether. 

It released. The chains holding her power faded into the ambient magic of the room and she relaxed letting the compressed power flow back through her, roaring back through her veins like fire. Well, as long as she played this right, this was no longer a trap, but a puppet show.

Azriel was her first priority. His blood was steadily dripping onto the floor and pooling around his feet and he seemed to be entirely supported by Cassian. She reached her power out, feeling the bloodbane that was indeed slowly spreading through Azriel’s blood. The King would notice if she took control of it now, so she monitored it, and took two quick strides forward, a plan forming. Only a second had passed and Rhysand was still stepping forward toward the King, and Amren’s quick steps placed her in front of him, in full view for the first time. 

“I doubt that would do us any good. In fact, it would probably just put us all in a more easily controllable and well guarded location for you. Tell me, am I close?” she spoke coldly, back straight and eyes boring into his.

The King paled slightly at the sight of her, his eyes widening.

“And furthermore I have an issue to discuss with you. I really have something against plagiarism,” Amren added in the same tone. This distracted the King well enough that she felt his power shift, moving to surround himself and less remained in Azriel. She used her own power to gently guide it, painstakingly slowly out of his body the way it had come, making sure it dripped out the exit would in his back, where it would be less visible.

“Amren,” she heard Rhysand’s warning tone from behind her, and at the same time registered the feeling of the stares on her back. She was going to have a lot to explain when they got out of this.

“Amren,” the King repeated, his voice slightly hoarse. In her peripheral, she saw Jurian turn to look at him, and she sensed everyone behind her do the same. Her gaze stayed locked on his. 

She smiled that feral smile that had been a fixture on his face while she had worked for him, then took another step forward. Act the part, keep him distracted, figure a way out. She felt the last of the bloodbane fall to the floor. Azriel was out of immediate danger, though blood loss and organ damage were still a concern. She would need to wrap this up as quickly as possible. Amren refocused her magic on the wards. First, those spanning the entire castle, preventing winnowing out. Again of her design. 

“That would be me. I’m surprised to see that you were not expecting to see me here.” Grateful beyond measure might have been a more accurate phrasing. “You couldn’t have actually believed I was dead,” Amren said, faining cruel amusement. 

The castle wards had an anchor point. The same one she had always used for protective spells when she had been here. One particular stone on the top of the highest tower, carved with protective sigils, and charged from years of use. One thought had her power lashing out and the stone high above shattered into pieces, tiny pebbles scattering down the roof in a shower. The wards preventing them from leaving fell, as well as every protective enchantment and, if she had felt that correctly, the spells holding her friends powers. He could not have been so stupidly overconfident. Amren felt for the spell holding Feyre’s power. Gone. And through all of this, no one seemed to notice.

“Well, how kind of you to correct my assumption, though I suppose it won’t matter, as you won’t be leaving here alive. So, really I will have been right after all,” the King mused. “Tell me, are you working with these fools. One of whom, I recall sending you to kill?” he glanced at Rhysand. “Because if so, you would do well to obey and follow me, if you care for the life of your friend.” 

“Ah, yes, I am working with them, though I haven’t explained to them that I know you,” Amren replied. She broke eye contact with him for the first time since stepping forward to twist around and look at her friends, whose expressions ranged from confusion to betrayal to horror. She made eye contact with Mor and mouthed “Wards down. Go.” 

Before she could even turn back around Mor had lunged forward and grabbed hold of Cassian and Azriel and disappeared. 

“I don’t think his life is in much danger actually,” Amren said to the King, who was staring in fury at where the three had just vanished. “And you should be more careful when you steal other people’s spells. They tend to keep a few aspects of them secret for security purposes.” 

With one look and a smile the King was on his knees screaming as Amren tore apart him mond, showing him his worst fears. She dropped Jurian in the same way, just to be safe. She turned to Rhys and Feyre who remained. 

“The wards are down, and you’re free of them. We can go. Or…” Amren trailed off. Rhys was eyeing her suspiciously. 

“We should do a walk through, see what was waiting for us upstairs. It shouldn’t be a problem with me and Feyre at full power. Can you keep him subdued?” Rhys decided.

“Certainly,” she answered with a cruel smile. She had imagined this many times in her darker moments. “He’s nowhere near as powerful as he was during the last war. If he’s not holding my book or the cauldron, he’s no match for me.”

“Good. We’ll come back here with whatever we find. You better have one hell of an explanation, Amren.” 

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell everyone when we get home.”


End file.
